How do people learn, and how should we teach?

As genealogical lecturers, we should be aware of two factors: what our audience wants, and what our audience needs.

In order to understand what our audience wants, all we have to do is ask them, and listen to what they tell us.

However, to understand what our audience needs, it is important to understand a little bit about how people learn. This is a relatively new field of research, employing both brain biologists and psychologists. There are numerous theories about how the brain works, and researchers still openly admit how little is actually known. Yet strides are being made.

Dr. John Medina, a developmental molecular biologist and research consultant affiliate with the University of Washington School of Medicine and the Brain Center for Applied Learning Research at Seattle Pacific University, published the New York Times bestseller, Brain Rules: 12 Principles for Surviving and Thriving at Work, Home, and School in 2008. This book outlines 12 “Brain Rules” that discuss various aspects of the brain that are currently known, and how these can be applied to our daily lives.

The Brain Rules website contains quite a bit of information, including the Introduction to the book, Chapter Summaries, References, a blog, and several supplemental videos and SlideShare presentations. All of the information can help to inform us both on how we ourselves learn, and how we can teach others effectively.

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11 responses to this post.

How people learn is NOT a “relatively new field of research.” The process of learning has been studied for close to a hundred years, and the basic principles of learning have been known for decades. Just consult any Psychology 101 textbook.

I read both of these last year and think they are a great pair of books as well – add to that pile the Heath brothers’ “Switch” and “Made to Stick” then mix in some of Nancy Duarte’s “slide:ology” and there is some powerful stuff to be had.

We are certainly in an economic time where design, creativity and understanding effective educational techniques are not only important but are becoming necessary.

To add more fuel: Dan Pink’s “A Whole New Mind” wraps these concepts up very nicely.

I was going to add links to the books I mentioned, but didn’t want my comment to appear spammy – look them up all, you won’t be sorry.

I have read both slide:ology and A Whole New Mind, and would definitely recommend both of them as well. I would also recommend Beyond Bullet Points, by Cliff Atkinson, and anything by Malcolm Gladwell.

I think 100 slides in 60 minutes is fine. I have at least one presentation like that. And it is mostly screen shots with highlighted (or more accurately, darkened-out) portions.

Of course, right now all of my presentations do require the audience to be quiet and hopefully stay seated until I am done, but maybe at some point I can work some movement into the mix. It is interesting what is becoming known about the human mind and how it functions. Now how do we incorporate this into a genealogy presentation?

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